Surveillance Guide
Lumana Pricing What a Lumana Quote Contains, What the Core Appliance Adds, and How the Cost per Camera Compares
Lumana publishes a pricing page with no prices on it. That is not a criticism, it is the model: the company licenses annually against your camera count, your retention and your term, and sizes hardware to match. This guide takes apart what that quote is actually made of, gives you the four numbers to demand in writing, and sets the result against the vendors in this category that do publish a rate.
How much does Lumana cost?
Lumana does not publish prices. Its pricing page states that Lumana pricing is an annual recurring license determined by the number of camera feeds, days of storage and license terms, payable yearly or upfront, with all features included rather than split into tiers. A deployment also carries Lumana Core hardware, which replaces the DVR or NVR, so a real budget needs the licence line and the appliance line together.
That answer frustrates people building a business case, and it is worth understanding why the number is missing rather than assuming it is hidden. Three of Lumana's four pricing variables are things only you know: how many streams, how long you keep them, and how long you commit. The fourth, hardware sizing, falls out of the first three. A vendor selling a fixed cloud plan can put a number on a page because it has removed those choices. A vendor sizing storage on site cannot, at least not honestly.
The practical consequence is that you cannot compare Lumana with anything until you have a written quote at your exact camera count. What you can do in advance is know precisely what to ask for, know which variable moves the number most, and know what the published end of the market charges so you can tell whether the quote is competitive. That is what the rest of this guide is for.
What a Lumana Quote Is Made Of
Every entry below is Lumana's own published description of its model, taken from lumana.ai in September 2026. No dollar figures appear because the company publishes none.
| Quote line | What Lumana states | How much it moves the total |
|---|---|---|
| Camera feeds | Licence is determined in part by the number of camera feeds | Linear, and the rate per feed usually improves with volume |
| Days of storage | Licence is determined in part by days of storage | Large. This is the variable most buyers under-specify and then pay to fix |
| Licence term | Annual recurring licence; pay yearly or upfront | Longer terms and upfront payment normally buy a lower rate |
| Lumana Core hardware | Core replaces your DVR or NVR, records to industrial-grade SSDs, comes in Standard and 1U models | Capital cost per site, sized to feeds and retention |
| Feature tiers | None. All features and capabilities come standard | Zero, which genuinely simplifies the comparison |
| Cloud archiving | Real-time cloud backup up to 365 days, plus unlimited cloud archiving | Confirm whether this sits inside the licence or beside it |
| Hardware warranty | Lifetime warranty on all Lumana hardware | Reduces the replacement reserve most five-year models include |
The line worth staring at is storage. Camera count is fixed by your building, and the term is a negotiation, but retention is a policy choice people make casually and then live with for years. Going from 30 days to 90 days roughly triples the recorded volume, which moves both the licence and the size of the Core underneath it. Decide retention from your actual obligations, whether that is an insurer, a franchise agreement or a state rule, rather than from a round number that sounded safe in a meeting.
The Four Numbers to Get in Writing
A quote-only vendor is not a problem as long as the quote is complete. These four lines are the ones that turn a headline figure into something you can defend to a finance team, and the ones most commonly missing from a first proposal.
- 1. Annual licence per camera feed, at your count. Not the list rate and not the rate at a hypothetical larger deployment. Ask for the figure at the number of cameras you will actually connect in year one, and separately at the number you expect in year three.
- 2. Core hardware per site, at your retention. Sized for the days of storage you specified, not a default. If you have five sites, this is five lines, and a small site may still need a Core.
- 3. The renewal rate. The number that applies when the initial term ends. This is the single most valuable sentence in any physical security contract and the one most often left out, because year-one discounting is standard across the category.
- 4. The cost of adding cameras mid-term. Whether a camera added in month seven is prorated at the same rate, and whether extra feeds trigger a Core upgrade. Estates grow, and an unfavourable mid-term rate is how a good deal becomes a bad one.
One practical note on the payment choice. An annual licence settled upfront lands in finance as a single large invoice rather than twelve predictable charges, which is worth flagging to whoever runs your accounts payable process before the term starts, particularly if approval thresholds differ by amount.
Two smaller ones worth adding if your environment calls for it: whether cloud archiving is inside the licence, and what happens to footage on the Core if you do not renew. The second matters more than it sounds. Recordings held on an appliance are only as accessible as your relationship with the vendor who supplied it.
Lumana Pricing Compared With Vendors That Publish a Rate
You cannot benchmark a quote against nothing. The table sets Lumana's model beside the AI video vendors that put numbers in public, so you have a band to judge the proposal against. Figures are each vendor's published rates or, where marked, reseller estimates.
| Vendor | Software cost | Hardware required | Price published |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lumana | Annual licence by feeds, storage days and term | Lumana Core per site | No |
| Surveillant | $49 to $75 per camera per month | None | Yes, four fixed plans |
| Volt AI | From $45 K-12, $55 higher ed, $65 organizations, per camera per month | None | Yes, starting rates |
| Rhombus | Professional licence $149 per camera per year | Rhombus cameras, $399 to $3,299 | Yes, price sheet |
| Verkada | Roughly $15 to $20 per camera per month, reseller estimate | Verkada cameras, $699 to $5,299 MSRP | Hardware MSRP only |
| Coram AI | Quoted | On-site appliance | No |
| Ambient.ai | Quoted | Edge appliances on site | No |
Read that table structurally rather than as a league table. The cheap-looking software rows, Rhombus and Verkada, carry a camera purchase that dwarfs the licence in year one, so they are only cheap if you were replacing cameras anyway. The software-only rows carry no hardware but no recording either, so if your NVR is also on its last legs the comparison has to include what replaces it. Lumana sits in between: software plus an appliance, but the appliance is the recorder, so it is replacing something you already pay for.
Per-vendor detail sits in our Verkada pricing guide, Rhombus pricing guide, Volt AI pricing guide and Coram AI pricing guide. For the category-wide bands, see what AI video analytics costs.
When the Lumana Model Is Worth the Quote Process
A quote-only vendor costs you time before it costs you money, so it is fair to ask what you get for the extra fortnight of procurement. With Lumana there are three answers that hold up.
The first is architectural. Lumana's design runs most processing locally on the Core, with the cloud adding remote access, extra processing and updates. Video stays on site by default. If your bandwidth is thin, your sites lose connectivity, or your policy says recordings do not leave the building, that is not a preference, it is a requirement, and it rules out cloud-only platforms regardless of price.
The second is breadth without tiering. Lumana states that all features come standard, and lists over a hundred detection capabilities including face recognition, threat detection, fire detection and near-miss analysis, driven by its VIA-1 model and four agents. Vendors that gate analytics by tier create a second negotiation six months in, when the feature you assumed was included turns out to sit one level up. A flat feature set removes that.
The third is compliance surface. Lumana states SOC 2 Type II, NDAA, HIPAA and GDPR. For a healthcare operator or a federal contractor, NDAA and HIPAA are gating requirements that shorten a shortlist faster than any feature does. If they apply to you, a vendor that names them is worth the quote cycle.
Where the model is not worth it is the mirror image. If you own working cameras, your recorder is fine, your sites have decent connectivity, and nobody is asking for face recognition, then you are buying an analytics layer and only an analytics layer. That is a purchase that should take an afternoon at a published price, not a quarter at a quoted one. Our Lumana alternative comparison runs that case side by side.
Questions Buyers Ask About Lumana Pricing
Does Lumana publish pricing?
No. Lumana's pricing page describes the model but lists no dollar figures. It states that pricing is an annual recurring license determined by the number of camera feeds, days of storage and license terms, with the option to pay yearly or upfront, and that all features come standard. Any per-camera number you see quoted elsewhere is a third-party estimate, not a Lumana rate.
Is Lumana priced per camera?
Partly. The number of camera feeds is one of three stated licence variables, alongside days of storage and licence term, so the quote scales with cameras but is not a flat per-camera rate. Ask for the effective per-feed figure at your exact count so you have something comparable with vendors that price that way.
Does Lumana require its own cameras?
No. Lumana states it is camera-agnostic and compatible with any IP camera supporting RTSP or ONVIF, naming Axis, Bosch, Hanwha, Avigilon, Dahua, VIVOTEK, FLIR and Pelco, with a minimum of 2 MP at 10 FPS. It does sell its own cameras, but existing ones can be kept. The hardware in the quote is the Core, not the cameras.
What is Lumana Core and does it cost extra?
Lumana Core is the on-site device that replaces your DVR or NVR, records to industrial-grade SSDs and runs the real-time AI locally. It comes in Standard and 1U models. Treat it as a separate capital line sized to your feeds and retention, and ask for it per site rather than as a single lump.
Does Lumana offer a free trial?
Lumana does not advertise a free trial on its pricing page. Because deployment involves hardware, evaluation normally takes the form of a demo or a scoped pilot arranged with sales rather than self-serve signup. If you want to test AI detections on your own streams the same day, a cloud-only platform will get you there faster.
How does Lumana pricing compare with Verkada?
They are different shapes of spend. Verkada requires its own cameras, published at roughly $699 to $5,299 MSRP, plus a per-camera licence quoted through resellers, so the first-year cost is dominated by hardware replacement. Lumana keeps your cameras and adds a Core per site. If your cameras are serviceable, Lumana's structure avoids the larger capital event.
What is a fair per-camera price for AI video analytics?
The published end of the market sits between roughly $45 and $75 per camera per month for full AI platforms on existing cameras. Narrow analytics add-ons on top of an existing VMS run lower, around $3 to $15 per camera per month. If a quote lands far above that band, the extra is buying hardware, retention or a service layer, and it is fair to ask which.
See the Price Before the Sales Call
Surveillant runs on the RTSP and ONVIF cameras you already own, at $49 to $75 per camera per month, with nothing added to the rack. Connect a camera and judge the alerts yourself.